With the mascot's 30th Anniversary upon us you can expect to see a lot of words devoted to Mario in the coming days. Of course, for a franchise that's established its reputation on irreverent fun, we can't help but consider some of its sillier features.

Power-ups qualify; yes, they can be integral to gameplay mechanics, absolutely essential to what makes a Mario game tick. In addition, though, they can look utterly bizarre and amazing; Mario's transformations see him take on some awesome forms.

As you can see below, the passing of generations and advancements in technology have seen Mario's look evolve a great deal.

Super Mario Bros.

Fire Flower

The original power-up, aside from the Super Mushroom, and a classic still employed to this day. It brings a simple colour change for Mario's standard outfit, but it's undoubtedly snazzy.

Super Mario Bros. 3

Frog Suit

Mario got a little more ambitious with his outfits when SMB3 rolled around, deciding that if he's going to have frog-like abilities he may as well go for a full body suit.

Tanooki Suit

Offers the same abilities as the Super Leaf, but with the added bonus of an ability to turn into a statue. A good thing too, as this is an outfit worth immortalising.

Hammer Suit

This one's simple and more reserved by SMB3 standards, as Mario just dons a protective helmet and a shell on his back. Still, those hammers sure are handy.

Super Mario World

Cape Feather

Mario decided that a cape, in all its simplicity, would do the job in his 16-bit adventure. Its abilities included the options to pick up momentum to fly and swoop through stages. Simple and stylish.

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

Carrot

Courtesy of its Game Boy home this was simple in design as a necessity; nevertheless it's Mario with bunny ears, so you can't really go wrong.

Super Mario 64

Wing Cap

A little lazy this one considering the 64-bit technology available, as Mario earned the ability to fly by putting a small set of wings on his hat. Hardly one to grace the catwalks of the Mushroom Kingdom.

New Super Mario Bros.

Blue Shell

A rather modest design, rather like a blue Hammer Suit without the helmet; not Mario's most exciting design, though the ability to destroy blocks and enemies in shell form was hugely helpful.

Super Mario Galaxy

Bee Mushroom

The spirit of SMB3 was revived in this title, with the Bee Suit being a delightfully fuzzy creation; this writer has an unhealthy fear of bees, however, so it prompts mixed emotions.

Boo Mushroom

Admittedly a transformation rather than an outfit, we just had to bask in the glory of a Boo with a Mario hat and moustache.

Spring Mushroom

A bit of a lazy effort here, with a spring wrapped around Mario; it was also annoying to control. Hm...

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Propeller Mushroom

A cute effort, with the red jumpsuit masking the fact that, realistically, that propeller's probably not big enough to actually work!

Penguin Suit

Penguins are some of the coolest animals in the world, with their waddling walk and slightly silly appearances; one of Mario's stronger efforts, and it was hoot to slide belly first in ice levels.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Cloud Flower

A lovely effort, with a twist on the standard outfit and an extravagant hat, this was also a clever power up in practice.

Rock Mushroom

A neat outfit with a puffy design, while this picture shows Mario looking a little tense as he transforms into a boulder.

Super Mario 3D Land

Boomerang Mario

Rather like the Blue Shell outfit above, this is a bit of an improved effort with a helmet and a neater overall design. Throwing boomerangs around is also great fun.

New Super Mario Bros. U

Super Acorn

We love this one, and it was the only 'new' outfit in this title alongside its P-Acorn equivalent. Its neat attached wing arms - inspired by flying squirrels - looked great in action.

Super Mario 3D World

Super Bell

The outfit that delighted cat owners and even melted the heart of this member of Team Dog, Mario ran around on all fours and pounced his way to glory. HD fur is always popular.

Hat tip to Mariowiki's list of power-ups as an awesome source of images.

The costumes after Super Mario World all start to look a bit sh*tty imo. I mean some of them are ok but a lot of them tend to look a bit forced, patronising and twee. After the intial costumes, which I mostly really like, I think really only the Penguin and Boomerang ones work, and the cat one would have been ok if it just didn't look so blatantly girly and designed for girls, or whatever. I mean it looks good but there's something really patronising about it for some reason, like it's trying too hard to be "cute".

Maybe I just really don't like the whole plasticky rendered look of these modern Mario games or something. I wish Nintendo could capture the look it had in that SMB3 character art but just in 3D. I mean that Tanooki suit/character just looks great.

Always loved the cape, but it was also a shame that you couldn't really utilize it aside from slowing your descend when riding Yoshi. Hope it will return one day though, as well as the Shell power-up. I loved using that power-up and always wondered why they hadn't brought it back.

It may be just me, but Nintendo seems to be out of the spotlight lately. Where are the AAAs? Nintendo Direct? Mario, Zelda, Pokémon? New games and IPs? I don't expect IGN or GameSpot to deliver news about Nintendo, but NLife is talking about galleries, memories, late games coming to e-Shop, indies, opinions for weeks now. Don't take me wrong, I know there are many great indies, but they don't make everyone go insane for 'em. Where are you, Nintendo?

@Hero-of-WiiU I guess I didn't, but it's not easy catching on to sarcasm when quickly reading someone's comment. Considering that what you said sounded like a reasonable question and it tends to be difficult to catch on to sarcasm through writing, I reasonably answered your question.

Nintendo did release a lot of info about dates for fall games, etc., but lately, yes they've been quiet. Ever since Iwata passed, they've stayed out of the limelight. I'd expect it to stay this way until they've found a new President.